Quick answer
A hand is dead when it can no longer legally win, such as after an exposure that fits no card line or a wrong tile count. The dead player stops picking and discarding but still pays the winner. A mistaken mahjong call carries no penalty unless the caller displays tiles from the hand, which makes it dead.
This guide covers the rules for when something goes wrong at the table, such as a set exposed incorrectly, a mahjong call that turns out to be mistaken, or a wall that runs out with no winner. Here is what the rules say, and where tables set their own conventions.
What makes a hand dead
A hand is dead when it can no longer legally win. One way is an incorrect exposure, where a player calls a tile and lays down a set that does not match any hand on the card, or that cannot combine with what they have already exposed.
Other causes include holding too few or too many tiles for the point in your turn, counting exposures, exposing sets that together fit no single exposed line on the card, and exposures that show the hand still needs a pair or a single the tiles left can no longer make, since no joker can fill either. A line marked C on the card must stay concealed, so any exposure rules it out, but the hand is dead only when no other line fits what the player has exposed. Sanctioned tournament rules also make a hand dead for picking ahead or out of turn, picking from the wrong end of the wall, and putting a claimed discard into the rack instead of on top of it. League rules also make a hand dead for exchanging for a joker before picking or calling on your turn.
What happens to a dead hand
Once a hand is declared dead, that player stops picking and discarding for the rest of the hand, and cannot declare mahjong. The other three play on without them. The jokers in any correct exposure the dead player made before the error stay on the table, and anyone holding the matching natural tile can still redeem them on their own turn.
A dead hand still pays the winner at the end. In tournament scoring a dead hand scores zero, and if the game ends as a wall game the dead player misses the ten points everyone else gets and loses ten instead. Any extra penalty is a house rule, so settle it before it comes up.
Calling mahjong when you have not got it
Calling mahjong by mistake costs nothing on its own. The sanctioned tournament rules say outright that there is no penalty for claiming mahjong in error. What kills the hand is showing tiles. If the player displays or exposes any tiles from the hand on the false call, the hand is dead, scores zero, and stops picking and discarding. A player who called a discard for mahjong but has exposed only the set that uses that tile can keep playing, as long as no other tiles were shown. If the hand shown in error was a concealed one, its tiles go back into the rack, nobody may exchange for its jokers, and the player still stops picking and discarding.
A false call can also end the hand for everyone. If the other three players believe it and show their own hands, all four score zero in tournament play. If only one of them kept their hand intact, that player gets ten points and the rest get zero. If two or more hands are still intact, the game continues. So when someone calls mahjong, keep your own tiles standing until theirs are checked against the card.
The wall game
When the wall runs out and nobody has declared mahjong, the hand is a wall game. No money changes hands, and under League rules the deal then passes to the right, as it does after every hand. A group that keeps East in the seat after a wall game is playing a house rule, so agree it before the first hand.
A hand that ends with nobody paying is a normal outcome, not a failure of the table. When your own hand cannot win, running the wall down with safe discards costs you nothing, and the discard that hands someone else the win is the one that costs you double.
How to avoid the whole category
The cause you can prevent at the moment it happens is the uncertain exposure. Before you call a tile, name the exact card line you are building toward. If you cannot name it, the call is a guess, and guesses are what produce impossible exposures.
The second is losing count. After any call, count before you discard. You should hold fourteen tiles counting your exposures, and thirteen once the discard is gone. Timing matters for a miscount from the deal. Under League rules, a wrong count found before or during the Charleston is thrown in and the walls are rebuilt, and once East has made the first discard the player with the wrong count is dead.
Put it into practice
New to the game? Start the course at Lesson 1, Meet the Tiles. The first three lessons are free and need no account.
Already play? Have the coach read a real dealt hand for you, free. It names the direction the hand goes for, what to keep, what to pass, and the reasoning behind each call.
A dead hand from a bad exposure starts with calling a tile before you were sure which hand you were building. Our AI coach reads a dealt hand and names the direction it points at, with the reasoning, free and with no account.